Sacrifices
by ancientandmostnoble
Summary: The first conscious day Bill has after being bitten by Fenrir Greyback. The story behind Bill and Fleur's surprisingly carefree attitude towards his scars and his great appetite for bloody steaks.


**Sacrifices**

There are very few students outdoors that day. The window offered a vivid picture of the lake's shimmering blue and the rosy blushing of the sky. The sun was dying, but for once, curfew wasn't the reason that hastened the students into the castle.

Two days had passed since Dumbledore died. Two days, different to all people.

Harry Potter's two days were a chilly numbness.

Severus Snape's two days were a blurry reluctance.

Lord Voldemort's two days were a feast.

Fleur Delacour's two days had been holding Bill's limp hand.

Bill's hand was not limp for still being unconscious after the werewolf attack. He had gained consciousness a couple of hours before. Fleur was now trying to revitalise the drooping orchids with her wand beside Bill's bed, so that she could keep holding his hand.

"You 'ave been different with your family today," said Fleur, frowning at the obstinate flowers. Bill Weasley didn't look at her,

"What do you mean?"

"Zat you don't act like zis with them," answered Fleur readily, "You are sad with me alone." Bill shook his head slowly,

"No, Fleur, I am not sad. Just tired." The beautiful blonde resumed her attempts at awakening the orchids, and a hot silence seeped into the room.

Fleur felt hot, sweating as if she had no way out from the blistering warmth.

"Are you going to marry me?"

Bill flinched. He had not expected this. Of all things, not this. He too could feel the strange warmth, spreading. But it was a different warmth from Fleur's.

The warmth of shame. He decided not to answer. Pretend he'd sleep. That he was tired.

"Bill, answer me! Why don't you answer me?" Fleur asked impatiently, frowning. Bill kept his gaze resolute out the window. And Fleur suddenly stopped making wand movements.

Her eyes fell on his scarred face, and just as suddenly, everything cancelled out.

"You don't want to marry me anymore," she said throatily. Her fingers clutched the sheets until they paled alarmingly. And with unannounced violence, Fleur stood.

Bill looked up. His hand shot forward, but before he could grab the slim, milk-white wrist between his fingers, begging her to stay, Fleur hissed, "No."

Bill hid his outstretched hand from an unaware Fleur and waited. This was to be the moment when everything would have stopped making sense. Fleur's golden cascade disappearing out the door, leaving only her painfully unmistakable scent behind, as well as beautiful and hateful memories. _Go ahead, then__._

"I will be selfeesh, again. I want to marry you, and I will." She paused, and when Bill had the courage to glance back, her head was lowered and her shoulders were shaking. Fleur was crying. Desperately she was sobbing, and Bill couldn't help but instinctively raise a gentle hand on her wet cheek. He had been restraining from touching her all his waking time.

Fleur tore away from his touch, raising her head in determination, her face a pearl sheen.

"Because I know you love me still, and I don't care 'ow many people will try to convince me otherwise, eet won't change!" she said angrily in one breath, and she still had the fiery look in her blue eyes. He squeezed all his courage.

"Let it go." It did not make him happy. Bill had always been the gentleman in the family.

Charlie was carefree, Percy selfish, the twins opportunists and Ron immature. He'd always been the one sacrificing, and only Ron, out of his all brothers knew what that meant, and felt.

He could feel it then. The heavy, wrenching, and yet, the determined grip of sacrifice. But this time, the incentive of his sacrifice was something greater, stronger; it was Fleur.

Therefore Bill Weasley accepted it all. He knew what was coming, and he acknowledged those visions of solitude and emptiness with a twitch on his lips; the failed attempt of a reassuring smile.

"You theenk you're so brave, hein?" said Fleur quietly, "You theenk you're doing something great for my own good, right? You theenk you're the only suffering right now?" Each question, more high-pitched than the previous, seemed to yank at the collar of his shirt in silent rage. Bill reacted at them, instead, in resignation.

Fleur gave one aggressive rap at her wand, directing it to the passive orchids.

"You changed overnight, by the damned bite of a werewolf that worths zero. I 'ope you're proud of yourself, now." Nothing resounded in that tiny, balmy hospital wing; two solitary figures bathed in the drowning last rays of the orange sun, refusing to speak, to reach out.

"I 'oped I would never need to tell you this," said Fleur finally, "But I'd prefer to live in danger with you, than safely without you."

Bill cursed the uncontrollable warming of his heart at the sound of those words, and voiced another of his fears,

"Even if your son or daughter will inherit some of the contamination from me?"

Fleur didn't flinch. She didn't cringe. She did nothing, except stare at him. Before she answered, Bill knew the answer, because the sky of her eyes told him in silence.

"I'm sorry," he started, and his voice cracked. Fleur welcomed his wet cheek at the cavity of her neck, and all the things unsaid, and all the things not done, like the kiss she much expected at his awakening, were filled by that one mutual gesture.

She let him cry his tears, because she knew he needed to do that in order to shed the heavy uncertainties of their future together. She cried with him, because she needed to do that in order to fully appreciate the indestructibly rosy future she knew they were going to have, despite it all.

The relief induced on her was apparently great, because when Fleur tried once again to flick the wand at the orchids, they lifted their heads a little, not fully recovered, but still, back from nothing.

"Why do you keep doing that?" asked Bill, when he lost against trying to release Fleur's gradually more forceful grip on his shoulders. She smiled, looking amused by some distant, powerful memory in her mind.

"You remember ze first day I visited ze Burrow? You caught me trying to throw away some of your Aunt's awfully old plants, oui?" Bill nodded, prompting her to go on, despite the knowing twinkle in his eye.

"You were upset by eet. You asked why I gave up."


End file.
